The Manual of General Policy was created to provide an easy to use reference manual for the policies that govern the University. It consolidates the non-bylaw policy action items adopted/amended by the CUNY Board of Trustees. In a small number of cases, materials from other sources have been incorporated into the Manual due to their importance. The Manual is not a legal authority; in all cases requiring a legal authority, the text of the Board of Trustees Minutes or other original document(s) should be consulted.

The Manual is organized into eight sections corresponding to the offices that are responsible for promulgating University policy. Every policy in the Manual contains one or more citations indicating the original source(s) of the policy. Most of these citations reference policy action items passed by the Board of Trustees and included in the Board Minutes, and are in the format (BTM,yyyy,mm-dd,nnn-ll). These citations are read as follows: (Board of Trustees Minutes, year, month and day of the meeting at which the action item was passed, section number, and action item letter).